Command & Conquer: Generals

In a single-player mode, players can tackle one of three campaigns, each dedicated to a faction and consisting of seven missions.[5] While a training mission is provided to allow new players to become accustomed to the game, players can freely chose which campaign to tackle and at what difficulty, with each mission moderately becoming difficult and featuring different scenarios to tackle.

Games can be played both over the Internet or a local area network (LAN).[6] It adopts a similar format to skirmish mode whereby the goal is to eliminate the other team. Games over the Internet can be completely random, in the form of a Quick Match. Players can also play in Custom Matches where the number of players, the map and rules are decided upon by the host.

The online feature originally worked via GameSpy servers. After the shutdown of GameSpy in 2014, these were no longer available.

The macOS version of the game released for the Mac App Store does not support multiplayer. Apple discontinued Game Center for online play with the release of macOS Sierra.[7]

Generals presents players with a separate musical score for each faction.[8] The United States' theme music consists of grand, militaristic scores composed by Bill Brown and Mikael Sandgren. China's musical themes feature apocalyptic, orchestral scores combined with East Asian instrumentation. The GLA faction's theme soundtrack can be described as a combination of Middle Eastern and few South Asian sounds coupled with heavy metal music.

Generals includes a map editor named World Builder for the PC edition only.[9] The World Builder includes features such as:

• A terraforming tool
• An intelligent road system, able to detect when the player wants an intersection
• A tool to scatter flora around the map
• Waypoints and area triggers that the AI can use. Waypoints also determine starting points for the players on a skirmish map.
• A scripting system that was meant for the missions in the single-player campaign

Generals takes place in a speculative future in which the world's two main superpowers - the United States and China - have become embroiled in a conflict with the Global Liberation Army (GLA) - an omnipresent borderless terrorist organization consisting of a fanatical irregular force - who seek to liberate the world from its "oppressive" governments. In the single-player campaigns, the United States and China act as allies with one another, in the hopes of combating the rising problems brought forth by the GLA, with the game's story focused on a chronological order of events that begins with China's campaign, followed by the GLA's campaign, and ending with the United States' campaign.

China holds a military parade in Beijing to celebrate the strength of its armies, only for the GLA to attack the procession and detonating a stolen Chinese nuclear warhead that kills thousands. In response, China works to counter GLA cells operating across the country, leading to considerable damage. Despite this, China manages to stop further attacks and even hamper the GLA's toxin production operations, going on the offensive beyond its borders with air support from the United States. Eventually, the Chinese launch an assault into Tajikistan, upon the stronghold of the mastermind behind the country's attacks, using nuclear weapons to finally put an end to the GLA incursion.

Despite their losses to the Chinese, the GLA maintains a strong presence across Asia and the Middle East, and retaliate by attacking American and Chinese forces, causing riots in Astana and raiding supplies being delivered by United Nations convoys. Eventually they target American forces, reclaiming bunkers storing toxin materials, and eliminate traitors attempting to use Chinese support. In order to demonstrate their might to the world, the GLA eventually assault the Baikonur Cosmodrome, decimating Chinese and American forces guarding it, and long-range toxin missiles at highly populated city to signal their victory.

To counter the threat they pose, the United States works to eliminate their presence in the Middle East, eventually focusing their efforts on Kazakhstan. The initial effort fails, but after successfully withdrawing and regrouping, American forces regain the advantage, and begin pushing back against the GLA, despite efforts by a rogue Chinese general to support the terrorist outfit with a supply of nuclear weapons. Pushed back to their final stronghold - the capital of Akmola - a joint America-Chinese operation is launched to liberate the city, ending the tyranny of the GLA.

The Generals series is banned in mainland China.[17] Throughout the Chinese campaign, the player is occasionally made to utilize heavy-handed tactics such as leveling the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre after it becomes a GLA base and destroying the Three Gorges Dam to release a flood on GLA forces. Chinese forces also liberally use nuclear weaponry in-game, albeit restricted to the lower tactical nuclear weapon yield range. Furthermore, in the introduction of the game, Tiananmen Square and much of Beijing is destroyed by a stolen nuclear warhead.

Initially, the game was released in Germany under its international title Command & Conquer: Generals. However, due to the then imminent Iraq War, the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young People) placed the game onto the "List of Media Harmful to Young People" two months after the initial release, which, by law, forbids further public advertising and any sale for people under 18 years of age. The BPjM stated that the game would give underage people the ability to play the war in Iraq before the real war had even begun.[18] Additionally, the player would be able to kill civilians. Based on these two points the BPjM put the game on the Index, because they believed it glorified war. Therefore, sale to minors and marketing the original version of the game were prohibited throughout the Federal Republic of Germany.

Due to the ban, EA released in the middle of 2003 a regular title-localized German version specifically for the German market called Command & Conquer: Generäle, which did not incorporate real world factions or any relation to terrorism.[18] For example, the "terrorist" suicide bomber unit was transformed into a rolling bomb and all other infantry units were changed into "cyborgs" (e.g. Red Guard becomes Standard Cyborg) in order of appearance and unit responses similar to earlier releases of the Command & Conquer franchise.[18] The changes, particularly the cyborg generals, were ridiculed by the gaming community[19]